Health care reform is playing a role in a northeastern Pennsylvania Catholic hospital chain’s decision to sell by the end of this year.

Mercy Health Partners has served the Scranton area since the Sisters of Mercy opened Mercy Hospital the city in 1917, but the new law may have influenced the timing of its decision.

The hospital chain runs three hospitals and three outpatient centers.

The law’s burdens mean more spending and reduced federal contributions for the hospital chain over the next five years.

“Health care reform is absolutely playing a role. Was it the precipitating factor in this decision? No, but was it a factor in our planning over the next five years? Absolutely,” Mercy Health Partners President and CEO Kevin Cook told WNEP, a Scranton-Wilkes Barre TV station.

The hospital chain’s finances remain in the black, but Cook said Mercy Health Partners lacks the resources to keep up with the local community’s projected needs over the next five years.

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The Conservative Political Action Conference isn’t all fiery speeches and political red meat.  Following the rousing speech by Rep. Mike Pence on Friday, a much more subdued presentation by Dr. Eric Novack described the efforts of states to pass a version of the Health Care Freedom Act, which I previously discussed here.  Much has happened since I last talked about the efforts of states to protect individual health care rights.

The number of states advancing legislation to protect individual choice from federal mandates has increased since December from 24 states to 35.  But merely introducing legislation isn’t enough; we need victories.

Virginia delivered a first step toward just that, as its state House recently passed a version of the Health Care Freedom Act. Elsewhere, the Tennessee Senate passed the bill 26-1, while other states, such as Idaho, have successfully advanced the bill out of committee.

These bills offer to protect citizens in two crucial ways. First, they would guarantee the right to purchase care directly, so that bureaucrats cannot be forced between patients and doctors against their will. Second, it would assure that citizens are protected from unconstitutional mandates to purchase insurance by allowing them to opt-out from any such federal program.

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By all accounts, future job growth is going to be sluggish at best and we can expect double digit unemployment at least through next year.  The Democrats’ response is a $300 billion jobs program.  Many Republicans would rather rely on the private sector to fuel the recovery and job growth.  So what’s better, Government Force or Market Forces?

The use of the phrase Government Force is based on the nature of government programs.  The vast majority of the people would prefer to pay little or no taxes.  They are literally forced by government to pay those taxes.  As it relates to a jobs bill, the Democrats will tax one set of people or businesses (taxpayers) and/or borrow money (a delayed tax) and then transfer a portion of those collected/borrowed funds to other people or businesses.  In that manner, the Democrats believe they have created a job – or in today’s vernacular, saved a job.  But have they?

In the process of taxing some and transferring to others, the government force has taken money away from a business/taxpayer in California and perhaps given it to someone in Alabama.  That means the business in California cannot hire someone (or save a job) with the money transferred to Alabama – a type of zero sum game.  Actually, it is worse than a zero sum game because government always manages to waste money in the transfer and so Alabama is never helped so much as California is hurt.

Put another way, in an effort to fill Alabama’s bucket, the government forces the emptying of California’s bucket through tax and spend transfers.  Perhaps that is why Churchill famously said “We contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.”

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Earlier today Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty explained to BigGovernment.com readers how the Baucus health care plan is a prescription for higher taxes and higher premiums.

In keeping with the theme that good perspectives and ideas often come from the states, 33 state-based think tanks came together this morning to announce a health care reform alternative to ObamaCare.

“President Obama and other supporters of government-run health care like to proclaim that there’s no alternative to their plans,” said John Tillman, CEO of the Illinois Policy Institute. “Our patient-centered reform package offers a clear alternative that puts patients, not bureaucrats, first.  It protects the doctor-patient relationship, offers viable solutions for the uninsured, and keeps medical care affordable for all Americans.”

Patient-centered health care reform:

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During the campaign in 2008, President Obama made his tax message as clear as it could be: he wanted to tax the wealthy, and help the poor. He promised over and over that taxes on those making less than $250,000 would not go up. So why has the president proposed a health care tax on the poor?

A frequent line by candidate Obama in his stump speeches during the election went something like this:

“Let me be absolutely clear. If you are a family making less than $250,000 a year, you will not see your taxes go up.”

Despite this promise, we’ve already had the federal tax hike on cigarettes to fund children’s health care (S-CHIP), an excise tax that impacts the poor profoundly more than the wealthy because of the inverse relationship between smoking and income.

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